Nebraska Volleyball Sets US, World Records For Attendance At Women’s Sporting Event

A women’s volleyball match between the University of Nebraska and the University of Nebraska-Omaha on Wednesday broke attendance records with more than 92,000 fans in the stands at Lincoln’s Memorial Field.

The five-time NCAA champion Nebraska Huskers hosted the Omaha Mavericks Wednesday night for a game that has been publicized since spring, and won 3–0. With 92,003 people in attendance, the match set a record for the largest crowd to watch a women’s sporting event in the U.S.

The previous record for women’s sports attendance in the U.S. was 90,185 at the 1999 Women’s World Cup final between the U.S. and China at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.

According to the team, the crowd also surpassed the officially recognized world record for attendance at a women’s sporting event: 91,648 fans in an UEFA Champions League match between Barcelona and Wolfsburg on at Camp Nou in Barcelona, Spain, last year.

“Husker Nation, you’ve done it,” the team posted on X, formerly Twitter. “The WORLD RECORD for a Women’s Sporting Event lives in Lincoln.”

The crowd also broke volleyball-specific records: prior to Wednesday, the largest crowd for any NCAA volleyball match was 18,755, when Nebraska played Wisconsin in the NCAA Final in Columbus, Ohio, on Dec. 18, 2021. The largest NCAA volleyball regular-season attendance was 16,833 when Wisconsin hosted Florida in Madison last year.

The sport is widely popular in Nebraska, with the Huskers selling out 306 consecutive regular-season matches, not including Wednesday’s match because it was played outside their home arena, the Devaney Center. The streak is an NCAA women’s record, the team said.